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Highlander mid-season-five 2-parter
Wow. That was seriously epic. This show! *catches breath*
And the Horsemen of the Apocalypse thing ... did not see that coming AT ALL. Well, okay, having seen those clips of barbarian!Methos did spoil me for that twist once the episode got underway (as soon as Cassandra brought up the horsemen, my reaction was "HOSHIT METHOS"), but yeah ... again with managing to remain unspoiled for what is probably one of the easiest spoilers to run across in the whole fandom. *g*
I'm still processing a lot of it. I love, as always, how complicated the show makes things -- it's not as simple as Methos going along with Kronos & co. out of fear, or because they're his friends, or because he's tempted by what they're offering, but perhaps a little of all three, in different measures depending on the moment. I liked seeing the less pleasant side of Duncan's moral absolutism: that it's both a strength and a failing of his. I liked the recognition that the Bronze Age Eurasian world was rough and cruel and brutal (Cassandra's fate -- captured, raped, her people killed -- was the fate of a lot of women in her time), but also that the same kind of cruelty and brutality still exists today (the Vietnam comparison -- that whole conversation with Joe and Duncan -- was brilliant).
I suspect that when I dive into the fanworks for this show that I'm going to find a lot of stories in which Methos is written as a guilt-ridden woobie, and, I don't know, I guess one of the things I really love about him is that he's not? I don't get the impression that he's sitting around being eaten up with guilt for those days. He just doesn't want to do it again; like he says at one point, it was a phase he went through, and now he's moved on. Which is not to say that he doesn't have regrets or guilt at all -- obviously he does for specific things (like what happened to Cassandra). But, again, not to the consuming level, and I don't think he hates himself for it or anything.
I don't think anything in these episodes changed my general impressions of Methos that I was talking about in the last post, but it added a lot of depth and complexity.
So, yeah ... still pondering the character stuff in the episodes, still kind of blown away by the action and the epic scope.
And the Horsemen of the Apocalypse thing ... did not see that coming AT ALL. Well, okay, having seen those clips of barbarian!Methos did spoil me for that twist once the episode got underway (as soon as Cassandra brought up the horsemen, my reaction was "HOSHIT METHOS"), but yeah ... again with managing to remain unspoiled for what is probably one of the easiest spoilers to run across in the whole fandom. *g*
I'm still processing a lot of it. I love, as always, how complicated the show makes things -- it's not as simple as Methos going along with Kronos & co. out of fear, or because they're his friends, or because he's tempted by what they're offering, but perhaps a little of all three, in different measures depending on the moment. I liked seeing the less pleasant side of Duncan's moral absolutism: that it's both a strength and a failing of his. I liked the recognition that the Bronze Age Eurasian world was rough and cruel and brutal (Cassandra's fate -- captured, raped, her people killed -- was the fate of a lot of women in her time), but also that the same kind of cruelty and brutality still exists today (the Vietnam comparison -- that whole conversation with Joe and Duncan -- was brilliant).
I suspect that when I dive into the fanworks for this show that I'm going to find a lot of stories in which Methos is written as a guilt-ridden woobie, and, I don't know, I guess one of the things I really love about him is that he's not? I don't get the impression that he's sitting around being eaten up with guilt for those days. He just doesn't want to do it again; like he says at one point, it was a phase he went through, and now he's moved on. Which is not to say that he doesn't have regrets or guilt at all -- obviously he does for specific things (like what happened to Cassandra). But, again, not to the consuming level, and I don't think he hates himself for it or anything.
I don't think anything in these episodes changed my general impressions of Methos that I was talking about in the last post, but it added a lot of depth and complexity.
So, yeah ... still pondering the character stuff in the episodes, still kind of blown away by the action and the epic scope.
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One of the things I was pondering last night, after posting this, is that all of the characters on the show are, in their own various ways, imperfect people, and it's one of the things I love most about them: they're damaged, they're flawed, they're broken, they're outsiders, they're really kind of a mess, but they love each other anyway. The "island of misfit toys" thing is one of my bulletproof fiction kinks and this show hits it hard. Methos's past is more checkered than most -- okay, yes, a thousand years of killing, that's kind of an understatement *g* -- but it's not like anyone in Duncan's group of weirdo, misfit friends has any sort of claim on normalcy.
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That's one of the favourite things about HL for me -- the band of misfits, surviving the rocking waves. *g*
LOVE IT.
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Yes, this! It's sort of a bulletproof kink for me as well. :D
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The thing I've always thought about Methos is that he's a kind of an oxymoron - on one hand, it's pretty much unimaginable what living for 5000 years would make a person into - IMO maybe a bit too alien concept for any of us, brief creatures, to grasp (and going on a tangent re: socipathic tendencies - maybe in a way, an ideal coping strategy for living so long and still being or seeming relatively sane) - and on the other hand, for some reason he often seems the most human of the Immortals, in his tones of grey and fallibility, and selfishness and selflessness, screwing up or just maybe doing things because he wants to, likes to, cannot resist the temptation of, while having unexpected flashes of generosity and self-sacrifice - yet we can never be 100% sure what his motivations are, deep down.
Well, or maybe we can just go with a cracky, but perfectly reasonable explanation and say that he's part human, part cat *grins*.
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He really is a fantastically complicated character! I'm still working out exactly how I feel about him, but there is no doubt that seeing Peter Wingfield's name in the credits makes me squee, because I know it'll be a good episode and all his scenes will be great. :D
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And this sums up the Methos experience perfectly. :D
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And then you watch it a few more times and ou *reassess, reassess*
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Definitely true about Methos being terrified of Kronos. My own view - although YMMV - is that I don't think he was Kronos's victim at all back in the "bad old days", but the more he changed and the more Kronos didn't change, the more the power dynamics changed, and now ... yes, absolutely. Remember what he says to Cassandra when she's in the cage? "If we want to survive, we will keep him happy." We.
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I agree mostly, although I think the main difference is that things worked fine in the old days because what he wanted and what Kronos wanted were mostly the same. I get the impression that Kronos was still the boss, though; when they ran into situations like the Cassandra thing, Methos yielded to him. (Though, like I said before, it was also tied up with issues of pride and manhood and friendship and so forth -- it's not just rolling over and showing belly for someone higher up the power structure.)
One of the things that made me tumble for him all over again is seeing absolutely wrecked he is in the modern-day scenes with Kronos. He knows that he can't beat Kronos; he knows that if Kronos tells him to do something (no matter what) that he's going to have to do it and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it except get tortured a lot and then die. I think that was equally true in the old days; it's just that he rarely had to be ordered around because he and Kronos mostly wanted the same things out of life anyway. And possibly young!Methos was a lot more confident in his own physical prowess, too -- he might have convinced himself that if he had to fight Kronos, he could win; he just didn't want to. But the power dynamic was still definitely Kronos --> Methos.
The other thing that really struck me on the rewatch, though ... I think I talked about this at the time, but one of the problems I had with Methos in season five is that I had no idea where his lines were. He struck me as a much darker, more morally ambiguous character than in past seasons, and I wasn't sure what he was capable of and whether there were things he just wouldn't do. "Comes a Horseman" answered that question, though: what he won't do is kill Duncan, not even to save himself from what would probably be a really unpleasant death. He doesn't appear to have even considered it. Granted, he knows Duncan's a better fighter than he is. *g* But he also knows that Duncan (probably) wouldn't take his head, and, if he was going to, knows a dozen ways of playing on Duncan's innate trustingness to get under Duncan's guard and strike (like at the dojo in season four).
I have no idea what his plan actually was -- clear out as fast as possible, tell Kronos that Duncan's dead and get out of town before Duncan catches wind of what's going on? Could he possibly believe that would work? Maybe distracting Kronos with the information about the other Horsemen along the way ... But, anyway, he's definitely in "run away" mode, even after Duncan shows up, which would be the time to draw a sword if he was planning on it. He's not planning on it.
He also had a perfect opportunity to kill Cassandra at the warehouse, and didn't.
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Anyways, I'd think that another valid interpretation is not that Kronos has Methos under his thumb all the way, allways, but it's a more two-way (fourway?) tangled web. Let's not forget that in the view of the Game, and the world itself being the way it is - to call someone brother for 1000 years ... it implies more than just 'I follow him 'cause I'm afraid of him and also think he's a manly ideal', also, it carries a hell of a loead of emotional baggage (not to mention that back at the good ol' bronze age days looting and raping was not morally wrong, but rather a good way to obtain a golden seat in Valhalla of your choice).
So, for whatever reason, Methos has changed - methinks first he just got bored, but, whatever (also, ther's an outtake with ridiculous wigs pertaining to the topic), he leaves. Kronos ... maybe isn't bored yet. Maybe he has ownership/jealousy issues. Maybe he's just lonely.
And now he shows up after centuries ... ready to disintegrate Methos' Adam persona. Yes, that makes Methos afraid. And probably he is not sure Kronos would not take his head. But I don't think fear is the only motivator here. It's also that he still cares at some level for at least Kronos and Silas (the latter one more easily, obviously), or at least he cares for the memory of the best moments of the bloody havoc-wreaking brotherhood. So, another, more complicated twist. It's kind of rather obvious that Methos has problems about killing Kronos himself, and I don't really think that it is just fear that holds him back.
So, long ramble short, with Methos and Kronos, I tent to see them more in a swinging, switching power type of relationship, one with strong connotations of co-dependency.
Um, also, I hope you don't consider it a spoiler, but there's a bit of a fannish ideas that draw parallels between some personality facets of Methos' ... fascinations? - as in some subtle simialrities between Kronos and Duncan, and I personally find this line of meta kind of fascinating.
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It's kind of like getting out of a bad neighborhood, and going on and making a better life for yourself, and then your old buddies show up again; you can see now just exactly how fucked-up they are and you hardly have anything in common anymore, but they're also still your friends. And I think the show did a pretty good job of making that dynamic explicit, especially when Methos tries to talk Silas out of going along with Kronos's plans in the second half of the 2-parter -- Silas is his friend, and Methos is still trying to give him a choice, just like Duncan's still trying to give Methos a choice.
So yeah, it's complicated. But I do think Kronos was unambiguously the leader of the group all along -- by virtue of being the toughest and nastiest of a group of tough and nasty guys. And Methos fears him a lot because he knows just exactly what Kronos is capable of.
I think I ought to hold off on discussing the latter part of your comment 'til I've seen the rest of the series ... just in case! I really don't see that at all, but I haven't seen all the eps so don't have the full view of the characters that the rest of fandom does, and I'd rather hold off on those sorts of discussions 'til I have.
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I tend to see the Cassandra thing as the beginning of the end of the Horsemen myself, so I'm not sure how well it works as an example of their dynamic during Methos's worst days. But you never know; it might be.
And I think Methos could have killed Kronos if he'd really wanted to - not in an open fight, maybe, but hell, even Kronos has to sleep some time, you know? Or a gun would do the trick. (Methos is good at not playing fair, after all.) But he didn't really want to - part of him still loved Kronos even while he was afraid of him.
Btw, I find it really interesting that you weren't sure Methos wouldn't actively turn against Duncan - it's something that never really occurred to me.
He also had a perfect opportunity to kill Cassandra at the warehouse, and didn't.
In fact, he saved her life - her Voice didn't work against Kronos, and she was no match for him with a sword.
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I had wondered this myself when I first watched the episode -- if the Cassandra thing was part of the catalyst for his transition to the Methos we know now. But I don't think the timeline works out at all. He refers to having been with the Horsemen as recently as 2000 years ago, doesn't he? Even allowing for a fudge factor of a few hundred years, if this is the Bronze Age, he'd still have several centuries with the Horsemen ahead of him. This would have been more like the middle of it. It may still have been a catalyzing factor, but I don't think it was an immediate one; based on timeline I'd figured that it was probably one of other, similar scenes that took place throughout his time with the Horsemen and eventually led to him finding a different path from theirs.
Ironically for how little we know about him, Methos's timeline is actually harder for me to sync up in my head than Duncan's, because some of the references from earlier in the series don't seem to fit with his whole "barbarian raider" persona at all ... like having kept a journal "since writing began", learning hieroglyphics and Greek along the way.... On the other hand, since even the other Horsemen seem to think of him as a scholarly, bookish person, presumably he was that way when he was with them as well, which is a delightfully complicated picture: Methos, seeking knowledge as well as destruction, relaxing at the end of a hard day of pillaging and raping by writing in his journal, or forcing captives to teach him their languages .... (Kronos: "You were supposed to take slaves, not books!")
But he didn't really want to - part of him still loved Kronos even while he was afraid of him.
Oh, yes, certainly. Well, he basically told Duncan that at the end of the last episode, didn't he? He didn't kill Kronos in part because Kronos was still his family. But he's also scared shitless of him ...
I like the dark complexity of Methos's relationship with the Horsemen; he can recognize what they are, but he still feels the bond with them -- they haven't stopped being his friends simply because he's changed and they haven't. And they aren't the ones who reject him -- they're quite willing to take him back again. I'm not entirely sure of all of his motivations for helping Kronos get the band back together -- surely four of them would be infinitely more dangerous to the world, and to Duncan and Methos's other friends, than two of them -- but I do think part of it, maybe most of it, was just that he wanted to see his friends again, and have the camaraderie back that they shared in the old days. As isolated as Methos generally is these days, and as long as he's lived, it's possible that his time with the Horsemen was the last time he really felt like he was a full-fledged part of a group and not an outsider.
Btw, I find it really interesting that you weren't sure Methos wouldn't actively turn against Duncan - it's something that never really occurred to me.
No, I wasn't sure. I was actually a bit surprised that he drew his line there. But then, I was still feeling out my view of the character. I don't think Methos is completely unwilling to betray or attempt to harm a friend -- he turned against Silas, after all, though only when Silas really forced his hand. But it does seem like loyalty is one of his overriding traits, to the few people that he gives his loyalty to. (... oh hell, that's another bulletproof fiction kink of mine too. *g*) Which was actually one of the reasons why I'd emotionally distanced myself from the character earlier in season five -- I'd been getting the impression that he was putting on a show of camaraderie that wasn't really there. But, no, not really: I think in some ways he's a more loyal person than Duncan is (much as I adore Duncan ...) because Duncan will act against his friends' interests if he has to for the greater good. It tears him apart, but he'll do it. Methos is more of a "screw the world, my friends all the way" kind of person -- like in these episodes with the Horsemen, actually.
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which is a delightfully complicated picture: Methos, seeking knowledge as well as destruction, relaxing at the end of a hard day of pillaging and raping by writing in his journal
That made me laugh. :D I can so imagine that!
I'm not entirely sure of all of his motivations for helping Kronos get the band back together
There are so many possibilities there, and I don't think it's just one reason. But at least part of it, I'm sure, was that if it had to end (and it had to, with Duncan after Kronos knowing what he knows now), it should end completely.
I don't think Methos is completely unwilling to betray or attempt to harm a friend -- he turned against Silas, after all, though only when Silas really forced his hand. But it does seem like loyalty is one of his overriding traits, to the few people that he gives his loyalty to.
I agree with this completely.
think in some ways he's a more loyal person than Duncan is (much as I adore Duncan ...) because Duncan will act against his friends' interests if he has to for the greater good.
Yeah, like we've discussed before, with Duncan it's abstract principles, and with Methos it's always personal. And they're neither of them completely wrong, which is why they're good for each other in my opinion.
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